Goodbye
by I. G. Scorsone
Summary: It was as she decided to take a breath of fresh air that she thought about the land, about it not being in the family any longer. And there he was, when she needed him, ready to walk around in the dark for her to say goodbye.


**This is based on a tumblr prompt sent by an anon, just so everyone knows!**

 **That being said, hope you like it!**

* * *

"Hey."

It was late into the night, and the tiredness was only just catching up with Amelia.

She had exited the party for a while, wanting some fresh air.

She couldn't quite grasp the idea that this land wasn't going to be _his_ any longer. The house wasn't going to be Meredith's.

Zola, Bailey and Ellis would never get to grown up here, run around in circles around this huge land.

It would all be gone.

"Hi." She answered, after what felt like millions of years.

She didn't need to look around to know who the person joining her was.

For a second, she felt the strange urge to lean against him. There was this constant need, it seemed, for his arms to be securely around her.

She didn't give in, though.

They were _nothing_.

"She's really selling, huh?"

Amelia nodded, before speaking: "She is."

It was the silence of the night, compared to the noise of the party, that lurred her into doing crazy things.

After all, it was the loneliness that got her over the edge. Sure there was tremendous pain and heartache that pushed her to a bar, but if someone had been there and just... Talk to her... Maybe things would have been different now.

It was useless to think about it.

She was an addict. If she wouldn't have done it when she did, she would've done it later.

 _Taking the easy way out_ , she thought bitterly, and here she was struggling.

"Amelia, are you sure you're okay?"

Derek's words rang in her ear.

 _The weather is perfect... I love you, Meredith... We're gonna do this a lot more when I get back._

How funnily cruel fate was, making words feel like dagger sometime.

"I don't know." She sighed. "I mean, I was fine. Until about fifteen minutes ago when it hit me that this piece of land right here... His land. It wouldn't be his anymore. It wouldn't even be his family's."

Beside her, she felt Owen inhale sharply, and turned to look at him.

That's when his eyes caught hers. Amelia froze for a second, not knowing what to do. In fact, everything felt frozen around them, the soft breeze, the crickets, _everything_.

There wasn't one sound to interrupt the moment, not one beeping noise, not one living being.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Was he going to kiss her?

Were they truly more than nothing, or was it just her imagination?

"Do you want to walk around? Say goodbye?"

And just like that, with a few words, the enchantment was broken.

Amelia nodded, almost like a reflex rather than actual thought and they went.

* * *

Somehow, they had reached the trailer on their long walk.

Amelia hadn't been there in almost a year.

She had never dared to, afraid of how hard it might impact her.

In her initial plan to stuff down feelings until they were no longer there, walking by your ex... _something_ 's house wasn't included.

And yet, here she was.

The place looked exactly like she remembered it: the front porch lonely and abandoned, the trees surrounding the place too high for any actual light to come in and the trailer itself barely cared for.

She wanted to laugh at the scenery, barely held it it.

It was sad, depressing even to think that this trailer had once been her brother's home.

To even consider that in this trailer she once imagined she might live as well.

How twisted and cruel fate was.

A trailer.

A trailer not much bigger than the truck that had hit him.

He once lived in a house not much bigger than the car which would eventually kill him.

A bitter laugh escaped from her lips, as she was this time unable to contain it.

A truck not bigger than his trailer.

Owen looked at her as soon as he heard her, but something in her eyes indicated she wasn't even in the same world as he was.

She was always just so out of reach, it pained him.

He could almost always tell what she was thinking about, but he rarely ever guessed the full story. It was like a maze: on the short term, he didn't hit a dead end, but in the long run, he still hadn't found the exit.

She was his maze.

Lost in his own thoughts, he hadn't noticed Amelia heading towards the trailer, her steps soundless on the grass.

His first instinct was to follow her, but should he?

Her unfocused walk gave him the air of her wanting to be alone.

So he waited, closing his eyes for a moment, to still his racing mind.

Owen watched her as her fingers traced lines on the metal, as if it were precious. To her, it probably was.

She could see every inch of dirt, could feel every unevenness on the surface. Every single spot that tin can had been hit or cursed or even touched, everything was there.

It was resistant.

This kind of uncomfortable, small trailer was probably more resistant than she had ever been. Just look at all the places it had been hurt in, and you can gather strength from that mere thought.

Her fingers never left the surface, tracing every part of it: upwards, backwards, left, right. Anything that felt even remotely like a bend, Amelia found it and admired it.

It had just kept bending, she guessed just like her. Against all blows, it bent but never broke.

It was easy to define a break with a house, an object in general: when the thing couldn't serve its purpose anymore, it had broken.

Was it the same with humans?

If it's fixable, do you still consider it broken?

Kinda like death. If you were resuscitated successfully, had you ever died to begin with? By any means, your heart stopped working. So did your brain, and slowly, other functions. But isn't the definition of dead not being able to return to life?

In her mind, the answer was no.

Anything fixable wasn't yet broken.

She wasn't yet _broken_.

Amelia felt Owen before she saw him. He was walking across the small distance between them, straight to her.

"You okay?" He asked, gentleness in his eyes as well as in his voice.

She could only nod, afraid that if her mouth opened, she'd never be able to stop speaking.

Was she still a hurricane if she hadn't destroyed anything in a while?

Or was she just rain.

"Do you... Want to come inside?"

It was his question that got her to realize how cold she was. Her body was shivering, and as much as she tried to hide it, she couldn't. He must have noticed that.

Amelia looked at him more closely, noticing he was also without a coat.

 _Well, they had been incredibly smart_ , she thought sightly amused.

"Yeah." She answered, a shy smile playing on her lips.

She was a combination of tears and joy right now, and it scared her. She knew at any moment, if one of these emotions ran too high, she'd burst.

Was it worse to laugh or to cry out of nothing?

Maybe equally.

He held the door for her, then.

The patched, beaten-up, metallic door and he let her in, before following her.

The inside was exactly the way she remembered: all messed up and unorganized. The fridge was probably empty and the bed was unmade.

Amelia couldn't help but notice only one side of it was untouched. She remembered the few nights spent here with sadness and a twist of nostalgia.

"Have you found somewhere to live yet?" She asked him, her eyes barely peeling off the crammed space to look at him.

He shook his head.

"Didn't even look, to be honest." There was a pause, in which Amelia took the liberty to sit down. "What about you?" He asked, as he sat down beside her.

She was on the untouched side of the bed, barely actually sitting.

He was comfortable on his side, unmade and known.

"Meredith suggested I come live with her, but... I don't know." She answered, while fidgeting with her fingers.

She hadn't thought about it in a while, the engagement ring that had found a temporary home on her hand.

She didn't miss James. Not really. Not like she should have.

But she missed Owen. She missed him terribly, although he was standing right there, less than a meter away.

Her eyes made the daring move to look up, only to find his staring at her.

It was like a chain reaction: first she had any contact with him, then her breath would catch in her throat, her heart would start beating tremendously fast and finally, she'd stop thinking and just roll with the impulses.

And now was no exception.

It took a second of weakness for her eyes to slip lower on his face to his lips, and she imagined how it would be to kiss him right there.

Then, she followed that instinct, her heart beating out of her chest.

 _Maybe she was going to explode,_ she thought, as she watched him get closer to her as well.

They met in the middle, his hands on her waist, pulling her whole body closer, her hands cupping his face, making sure he knew how she felt.

At least the parts she herself understood.

The kiss was soft at first, it was gentle and kind, slightly hesitant. Amelia was the one who deepened it, moving closer until their bodies touched.

She could feel his heartbeat.

Or maybe it was hers, or maybe both their hearts were beating simultaneously, in perfect harmony.

It was, however, when she tried to go even further that he pulled away.

"We can't do this." He said, in between deep breaths.

She looked at him with her big, blue, beautiful eyes that he adored so much and it took everything in him to not go back to kissing her.

"Because it's not the right time. Nor is it the right place and... Amelia, we have to do this right this time."

" _I love you_."

Well, that came flying out of her mouth.

Typical lack of filterer.

She looked at him, stupidly hoping he hadn't heard her. But he did.

His eyes were mirroring the look of surprise on her face.

"I didn't mean... I mean, I did. I just didn't want to say it..."

He cut her off with another kiss.

It was short, it was so short she didn't even get to reply.

But it was enough.

He didn't pull away completely, their foreheads left to touch.

"I love you too." He said, his eyes half-closed.

 _This was it_ , Amelia thought. This was a new beginning.


End file.
